Like a Life I Never Knew

A Homily for the 28th Week in Ordinary Time 2025

There is an adage that goes: “People will tend to prefer a bad certainty over a good uncertainty.” Or to put it another way: “People will tend to prefer the life they know over a life they’ve never known.”

I suggest we can see this dynamic at work in our scriptures today. Recall the story of Naaman from the 2nd Book of Kings. When Naaman, a leper, first approaches Elisha, the prophet, for healing he is told to go and plunge into the river Jordan. Naaman protests, being from Syria, he knows that the Euphrates and the Pharpar are much more impressive rivers, and since bigger is better, he would rather plunge into what is familiar than what is unfamiliar. Naaman would rather take a bad certainty over a good uncertainty and therefore, remain ill.

Now let us look at the Gospel today from Luke. Ten lepers approach Jesus and seek healing. All ten are healed, but only one returns to give thanks and so Jesus asks: “Where are the other nine?” I’ve often wondered about those other nine myself. Did they somehow not even notice their healing? Or did they take it for granted… maybe they thought somehow they “deserved” the healing. Or, could it be, they had so over-identified themselves with their illness, they were so familiar and strangely comfortable in a life of sickness, that they couldn’t fully accept the healing Christ worked in them? They were healed, but they rejected it because they didn’t know what it would mean to live a life that is more whole over a life that is half. They preferred a life they knew over a life they didn’t know.

The Franciscan spiritual writer, Richard Rohr, wrote something once that has always stayed with me because I’ve experienced it as true in my own personal relationships, in my community relationships, and in the relationships that develop in ministry. Rohr writes:

“If we do not transform our own personal pain, we will undoubtedly transmit it.”

Rohr makes clear that any unaddressed personal pain, wounds or trauma will inevitably be passed on to others and often unintentionally.

We hear in our 2nd reading today from Timothy: “The word of God is not chained.” Jesus cannot be chained, God’s desire to make each and every one of us whole, cannot be chained. But we can live as if we are chained. We can chain ourselves to “bad certainties” and inflict those bad certainties on others. We can chain ourselves to a life limited, a life half-lived and resent those who are courageous enough to live into a life they never knew.

Naaman the Syrian may have remained a leper if he would have insisted that healing can only come from what he felt was superior or familiar. As for the nine lepers, I wonder, did they somehow remain “healed but still lepers”? People so afraid of living into the wholeness Christ invited them into that they were truly healed but still insisted on living as if they were still lepers? Thereby continuing to inflict others with their fear of being fully alive?

We can “chain” ourselves to a bad certainty. We can “chain” ourselves to a life limited and half-lived, but we have to remember we don’t simply chain ourselves… we chain others right along with us.

Why would Naaman insist on the familiar? How could nine lepers possibly be so blind to their own healing? Unaddressed personal pain or personal hurt often leads to fear. And fear is contagious! Why all the violence and vitriol in the world today? I suggest it is because people are chained to their pain and therefore they transmit fear and fear fuels the fire that keeps division and hate alive.

So what’s the Good News for today? The word of God is unchained. Jesus is unchained. God’s desire that we each know the fullness of life is unchained. But we have to do the work of letting our personal hurt and pain be transformed so we can transmit healing rather than fear.

It is never too late to transform your pain so you can transmit healing. Whether you are 20 years old or 80 years young. We all have the power to abandon our bad certainties for good uncertainties. We all have it in us to surrender the half-life we live and live the life we never knew.